Elizchase's blog

My project is in the form of an essay, but is really just many of my opinions and feelings about the things we've learned and discussed this semester. Hence the title, "Stream of Consciousness."

I talked about the possibility of a dangerous future due to VR as well as the positives VR can make to our future. I also discussed my increasing fascination with alternate reality games and how I can totally see myself in the future playing one and being completely into it. I did not know anything about any VR stuff before this class. And a lot of it won't really effect the life I live now, or my future. But I feel more open to technology and to the idea of SL and IF after this class. I don't think it's as strange as I originally thought.

My final is just a rambling of my thoughts and ideas based on IF, SL, and ARGs. I also talk about "Lawnmower Man" and "The Machine Stops" very briefly to show my point. Although this is not a "Traditional Essay" and doesn't follow a 5 paragraph essay form, I think it serves to support my point of view and my opinions.

So I realized I forgot to write my own blog about our ARG we created for class...

The basic storyline that we created for our game was one that University of Mary Washington students would be able to connect with. We made our story set in Fredericksburg, mostly on the Mary Washington campus. The puzzles and clues we created dealt with things college students could understand, such as having an outside job, and the use of Facebook. The storyline is not necessarily the most believable, it has elements of fantasy and mythology, but it is interesting to follow.  read more »

So before following an ARG, and hearing the group presentations, I always thought that alternate reality games were weird, and so were the people who followed them. However, now that I've understand them better, I kind of think that they are pretty cool and the same with the people who follow them. A lot of the more intense games have really difficult puzzles and challenges that require a lot of work and skill. Same with the puppetmasters of the games. They have to be extremely creative and bright people in order to come up with the puzzles as well as a believable and follow-able story line.

I can also now see why people are so enraptured with these games. They seem easily addicting. Once I hear about the puzzles or games, I definitely want to see how it ends. I think this project has kind of opened my eyes to see that ARGs aren't as strange and weird as they first seemed.  read more »

My interactive fiction game is called "The Cottage." It starts off with the main character awaking in a giant field, not knowing where they are or how they got there. They then see a familiar looking cottage off in the distance and explore it. They then see things from their past inside the cottage itself and read notes and things. I had fun writing the story, but I'm not sure how well it is written through the game.

I tried to make cool puzzles and interesting things, but I'm not very good at using inform. I had a hard time manipulating the code to understand what I meant. But I think my game is cool, however simple it might be. It was an interesting experience using inform and making my own game. Very difficult, but still really cool.

I played the Hall of the Fount of Artois, and the idea of the game was pretty cool. You were a wizard in an old mansion and you were trying to break a curse on the family's son. There was a grandfather clock that kept time for you, as you only has a small time to break the curse. There weren't many puzzles to solve, mostly every "thing" you picked up you used in a little bit. But it wasn't very interesting. You had to carefully use your verbs and try to think what words you thought the author would use. I never actually managed to break the curse, because I got easily frustrated with the wordage.

I am still working on my own IF game and hope to have it done enough for tomorrow. After playing one of the competition games, I'm thinking mine is going to be a bit of a bore to play as well. But it's my first time doing this, so I just hope that it makes enough sense to be able to play it. Maybe the peer review workshop will help to give me more ideas to make my game better. Also, playing the IF comp game will most likely help me by showing me what NOT to do. Back to work now :)

The possibility of lawnmower man becoming reality is a very scary thought. The fact that Jobe could move things with his mind and could read other people's thoughts because of virtual reality is kind of mind-blowing. Although the concept of increasing one's intelligence level does sound promising and exciting, to this extreme it is a little intimidating. In the film, Dr. Angelo just wants to use the "Project 5" data to research intelligence enhancing through virtual reality and does not want anyone to get hurt. Yet, people did get hurt, and Jobe eventually wanted to conquer the virtual world and become "pure energy." It is insinuated that he does achieve his goal by the phones ringing at the end of the movie. If we lived in a world where the lines between "actual" reality and "virtual" reality were blurred, I think it would be a scary place to live in. There would be no boundaries or defense against what people like Jobe could do. People would want their problems instantly fixed with intelligence enhancing and to gain power. As Jobe says in one part of the movie, we need leaders.  read more »